LAST DAY IN MANILA
Today is our last day in Manila. I have to say that this week I’ve been dreading leaving this place. We’ve made a lot of friends, and just as we are getting assimilated, we have to leave. Even the staff has been saying their goodbyes. Yesterday was our last day in the office, and it was tough to say goodbye to some people who helped us over the past few months. I am not sure there is anyone more nostalgic then me, so it’s tough. Life here is so much simpler, and just thinking about returning to my life in the US I can already feel the angst. Just this week alone, I had four e-mails from three banks requesting me to join their teams. It’s good to be “in demand” and have your work recognized, but in the end, it’s going to be tough to go back to a regular project after doing something like this.
One of the roles I was offered was to run the largest treasury merger our firm has ever done. It sounds like a really good opportunity, but I know exactly where it will lead, how my life would be sucked up by work again, and how the work I would be doing really wouldn’t make the world a better place. Once you live on this side for a while, it’s a realization that I’m not sure you can ever recover from. It is as if a light goes off, and you realize that you feel better about yourself, and your life when you’re doing work like this. Even hanging out with some of the younger crew of our client, they have really important roles, and they are all truly happy (that’s generally a Filipino thing though). Yesterday morning, one of them (aged 23 or 24 years old) got to represent the client on a radio show talking about climate change, and the Copenhagen conference. The night before, we all hung out, and in jest I interviewed her and tried to stump her. I couldn’t. She was incredibly prepared. Two days ago, a Whale Shark (butanding) was found dead in Manila bay. The shark had no signs of damage, and the autopsy yielded that the shark had trash and nails in its belly. The shark was 2 years old. They had a proper burial for the shark as well, and one of the younger crew of the client made a statement at the funeral. It made the front page of the national paper. My point is that the opportunities they have are just as challenging as those in the private sector, and they are doing very important work – much more important than running the largest treasury merger.
What’s next?
I tried to get onto a project in Africa or Europe doing something similar, but I was told no. Our firm has high demand at the moment, and I am technically on loan from my business unit. Before I start work, I need to decompress for a while, so I am going to spend two weeks in the region on personal travel. I’m starting out my trip to visit some friends in Singapore, and then heading over to India and travelling for about a week. I’ll be stopping in London for a night on my way back, but can’t stay out here too much longer.
Longer term, I want to go to business school (met a ton of LBS folks on this trip) and I think I’ll try and do another ADP role next summer. Hopefully I will be able to do this on a yearly basis.
As for the blog, I think I’ll keep posting here for a few more weeks. Thanks for following my blog over the past few weeks, and thanks for all your comments and e-mails! I've had my fair share of tough days, and your support has really carried me through.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
THE PROJECT OUTCOME
The last few weeks have been extremely political, stressful, and a number of behind the scenes power plays were brought to our attention. I pulled 3 all nighters this week trying to get stuff ready, but in the end we just could not get past some internal conflicts the client needs to work out. Here’s a synopsis we provided our advisor:
Last we left off, we were trying to sell the client a better approach of bundling their projects and setting up a ‘conservation’ fund to essentially collect donations for un-investable projects. We faced some significant push back because essentially our immediate clients (The Core Team), was insufficiently prepared to get into the detail of our work and complicated things by selectively filtering much of our work from the shareholder executive team (the SET). The result is frustration by the SET for not even knowing the nature of the problems that were being encountered and frustration by us for not even being allowed to have direct interaction with the senior clients. Our client contact, has repeatedly given us insight to the internal power plays and communication problems that have plagued the region. She even mentioned one of the three, effectively controls the channel to the CEO and doesn’t even like the other 2 to approach him directly…
Another repeated request of ours was to have an internal finance contact to work with to help out with the project and sell the messages of the fund. They finally decided on the last day of the project (yesterday) that it would be good for us to share the model with the CFO of Australia. It will now be in good hands, but disappointing this wasn’t done early.
The end result is that they realise they cannot go further until the sort out their internal issues and get everyone all together. Much of this doesn’t come as a surprise. We have left them with a very robust model upon which they can then design the right fund. We left them with a draft prospectus that was very useful for them, but incomplete until the final model is agreed upon and external administration identified. We also left them with detailed slides on the approach we took, tradeoffs made, and key risks they need to address.
We’ve been told that we gave them what they need and this was a highly useful exercise. In sum, the CEO of the region did not take an active role and let three marketers essentially be the sole input into our work, which at time was inherently complex and required serious decisions to be made and tradeoffs to be addressed. It was a great learning experience for both sides. We told them we will be available for any further questions, etc, should they be able to sit down and agree on the way forward. They appreciated the work we did and I think only at the end realised they were in over their head with the technical aspects of the fund and did not seek sufficient help.
As much as we were disappointed for the project not working (at least we had one recommendation that would make it work), we were told by the client that the point wasn’t to solve the problem as much as it was to do some further analysis, which we did. The CEO of Australia called my model the “Rolls Royce” of financial models, which made me feel good too. I think I can walk away knowing we did well, and I’m certain that the client will call us if their needs change in the future.
The last few weeks have been extremely political, stressful, and a number of behind the scenes power plays were brought to our attention. I pulled 3 all nighters this week trying to get stuff ready, but in the end we just could not get past some internal conflicts the client needs to work out. Here’s a synopsis we provided our advisor:
Last we left off, we were trying to sell the client a better approach of bundling their projects and setting up a ‘conservation’ fund to essentially collect donations for un-investable projects. We faced some significant push back because essentially our immediate clients (The Core Team), was insufficiently prepared to get into the detail of our work and complicated things by selectively filtering much of our work from the shareholder executive team (the SET). The result is frustration by the SET for not even knowing the nature of the problems that were being encountered and frustration by us for not even being allowed to have direct interaction with the senior clients. Our client contact, has repeatedly given us insight to the internal power plays and communication problems that have plagued the region. She even mentioned one of the three, effectively controls the channel to the CEO and doesn’t even like the other 2 to approach him directly…
Another repeated request of ours was to have an internal finance contact to work with to help out with the project and sell the messages of the fund. They finally decided on the last day of the project (yesterday) that it would be good for us to share the model with the CFO of Australia. It will now be in good hands, but disappointing this wasn’t done early.
The end result is that they realise they cannot go further until the sort out their internal issues and get everyone all together. Much of this doesn’t come as a surprise. We have left them with a very robust model upon which they can then design the right fund. We left them with a draft prospectus that was very useful for them, but incomplete until the final model is agreed upon and external administration identified. We also left them with detailed slides on the approach we took, tradeoffs made, and key risks they need to address.
We’ve been told that we gave them what they need and this was a highly useful exercise. In sum, the CEO of the region did not take an active role and let three marketers essentially be the sole input into our work, which at time was inherently complex and required serious decisions to be made and tradeoffs to be addressed. It was a great learning experience for both sides. We told them we will be available for any further questions, etc, should they be able to sit down and agree on the way forward. They appreciated the work we did and I think only at the end realised they were in over their head with the technical aspects of the fund and did not seek sufficient help.
As much as we were disappointed for the project not working (at least we had one recommendation that would make it work), we were told by the client that the point wasn’t to solve the problem as much as it was to do some further analysis, which we did. The CEO of Australia called my model the “Rolls Royce” of financial models, which made me feel good too. I think I can walk away knowing we did well, and I’m certain that the client will call us if their needs change in the future.
Partner’s Night and I Meet My First Billionaire
Monday after landing from Barocay, we were invited to our client’s partner’s night, where their major sponsors get together, get an update on the work that is going on, as well as wine and dine with the board of directors. The CEO of my client was also in town meeting with the President of the Philippines, and the Asian Development Bank on some initiatives ahead of the Copenhagen conference. The CEO definitely walks with a lot of clout, and you can see that he has a lot of power. Of course, it helps when he gives a speech and provides anecdotes about heads of states…
I also met the Ayala family, which is huge in the Philippines. They just donated a billion pesos to the education system the week before. Some other characters who were around: the CEO of Coca Cola in the Philippines, US ambassador Kennedy, and I met a man named Vince Perez, who was for sure the most interesting person to talk to (check out his profile and you’ll be amazed at how much he has done in his life: http://vinceperez.net/profile.htm)
It was an awesome event, but we were super tired after partying late the night before, and getting up at 5am to catch out flight back. After the event, we hung out with the younger crew of our client and talked for a few hours while some of them cleaned up. It was a lot of fun, and one of the nights I’ll remember for sure. This night was also the only time I wore a suit in the Philippines. It’s way too hot to ever wear a suit down here.
Monday after landing from Barocay, we were invited to our client’s partner’s night, where their major sponsors get together, get an update on the work that is going on, as well as wine and dine with the board of directors. The CEO of my client was also in town meeting with the President of the Philippines, and the Asian Development Bank on some initiatives ahead of the Copenhagen conference. The CEO definitely walks with a lot of clout, and you can see that he has a lot of power. Of course, it helps when he gives a speech and provides anecdotes about heads of states…
I also met the Ayala family, which is huge in the Philippines. They just donated a billion pesos to the education system the week before. Some other characters who were around: the CEO of Coca Cola in the Philippines, US ambassador Kennedy, and I met a man named Vince Perez, who was for sure the most interesting person to talk to (check out his profile and you’ll be amazed at how much he has done in his life: http://vinceperez.net/profile.htm)
It was an awesome event, but we were super tired after partying late the night before, and getting up at 5am to catch out flight back. After the event, we hung out with the younger crew of our client and talked for a few hours while some of them cleaned up. It was a lot of fun, and one of the nights I’ll remember for sure. This night was also the only time I wore a suit in the Philippines. It’s way too hot to ever wear a suit down here.
Barocay
Wow, it has been too long since I posted. Since my last post, we went to Barocay, which is an awesome island that has some of the best beaches I have ever seen. We woke up on Saturday morning, figured it would be fun to go, so we rushed to the airport and bought our tickets on Sea Air – on a prop airplane.
While going to the Airport (the airport terminals are spread apart in separate buildings on different properties) we noticed a bunch of emergency vehicles on a runway. We asked the taxi driver what was going on, and he informed us that a Victoria Airlines flight crashed, and some people didn’t make it – scary! Fast forward about an hour and a half later, we’re landing into Barocay. The pilot takes his initial approach, and aborts his landing at the last second. We fly around, and circle back for the second approach… same thing, he aborts at the last second. At this point, I’m wondering if this guy knows how to land a plane. The runway is right off the beach, and is incredibly short. If you don’t hit it just right, you crash. The pilot comes around on his third attempt, hits the edge of the runway and slams on the brakes… we barely stop at the edge of the runway. Interesting that he has to do that a couple of times a day.
Barocay was awesome and relaxing. We hunted for a while to find a hotel (since we had no reservations), and finally settled on some place called Nigi Nigi Noo Noos or something like that. We chose the place based on the fact that they had two awesome dogs outside, and their bar was populated with decent looking people and played awesome music. My roommate has this thing where he will never eat at empty restaurants, etc – his theory is that crowds make smarter decisions (not always true).
Anyway, Barocay was chill, we spent time just sitting on the beach. We also got to do some snorkeling at what is for sure some of the best reefs in the world. Philippines has world class diving as well. When I get around to posting pictures, you’ll get a sense of what I am talking about.
The music scene in Barocay is awesome too, and as usual we ended up partying with one of the rock bands. Though it was a relaxing weekend, it wasn’t fee of our client panicking and calling us to do some work. We had no internet connection, and explained to her that we were at the beach (she didn’t think that we were off the island entirely). We also booked our flight to leave Barocay at 6am on Monday morning, and we figured we’d make it into the office by 9am…the client assumed we were local and come Sunday she starts making requests for us to send her additional slides for a presentation we had on Wednesday. In the end, it wasn’t that important, and she understood.
Taking off from the runway was less eventful. The pilot applied the brakes, spooled up the engines and let the brakes go and away we went. Prop planes can be fun…
Wow, it has been too long since I posted. Since my last post, we went to Barocay, which is an awesome island that has some of the best beaches I have ever seen. We woke up on Saturday morning, figured it would be fun to go, so we rushed to the airport and bought our tickets on Sea Air – on a prop airplane.
While going to the Airport (the airport terminals are spread apart in separate buildings on different properties) we noticed a bunch of emergency vehicles on a runway. We asked the taxi driver what was going on, and he informed us that a Victoria Airlines flight crashed, and some people didn’t make it – scary! Fast forward about an hour and a half later, we’re landing into Barocay. The pilot takes his initial approach, and aborts his landing at the last second. We fly around, and circle back for the second approach… same thing, he aborts at the last second. At this point, I’m wondering if this guy knows how to land a plane. The runway is right off the beach, and is incredibly short. If you don’t hit it just right, you crash. The pilot comes around on his third attempt, hits the edge of the runway and slams on the brakes… we barely stop at the edge of the runway. Interesting that he has to do that a couple of times a day.
Barocay was awesome and relaxing. We hunted for a while to find a hotel (since we had no reservations), and finally settled on some place called Nigi Nigi Noo Noos or something like that. We chose the place based on the fact that they had two awesome dogs outside, and their bar was populated with decent looking people and played awesome music. My roommate has this thing where he will never eat at empty restaurants, etc – his theory is that crowds make smarter decisions (not always true).
Anyway, Barocay was chill, we spent time just sitting on the beach. We also got to do some snorkeling at what is for sure some of the best reefs in the world. Philippines has world class diving as well. When I get around to posting pictures, you’ll get a sense of what I am talking about.
The music scene in Barocay is awesome too, and as usual we ended up partying with one of the rock bands. Though it was a relaxing weekend, it wasn’t fee of our client panicking and calling us to do some work. We had no internet connection, and explained to her that we were at the beach (she didn’t think that we were off the island entirely). We also booked our flight to leave Barocay at 6am on Monday morning, and we figured we’d make it into the office by 9am…the client assumed we were local and come Sunday she starts making requests for us to send her additional slides for a presentation we had on Wednesday. In the end, it wasn’t that important, and she understood.
Taking off from the runway was less eventful. The pilot applied the brakes, spooled up the engines and let the brakes go and away we went. Prop planes can be fun…
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